A common advertising model utilized on the Internet, in particular with search engine websites, involves a system of providing sponsored links. Sponsored links are paid advertisements that appear in addition to search results when users input keywords at search engine websites. For example, if a user enters the term “flowers,” advertisements that an advertiser believes may be relevant to someone searching for flowers are displayed with particular search results. The advertisements appear as a result of advertisers bidding on particular keywords, such as “flowers.” If multiple advertisers place bids on the same keyword, it is common for advertisements with the highest bids to be displayed when a user enters a search term that matches the keyword. Oftentimes, there is no limit on the number of search terms a particular advertiser may bid on.
The bidding process is commonly managed by an intermediary, such as a search engine website. Advertisers bid on keywords and submit advertisements associated with the keywords to the intermediary. The intermediary typically utilizes one or more databases for storing the advertisements, associating the advertisements with bids and keywords, keeping track of the highest bidders, scheduling, etc., and ensuring that at any given instance the advertisements corresponding to the highest bids are displayed when search terms matching the keywords are entered by the users. Whenever a user clicks on a displayed advertisement, the intermediary charges the advertiser a fee. The intermediary also commonly monitors the “click-through” rate (e.g., how many users actually select or click on the displayed advertisement). In some cases, if the number of users clicking on the advertisement is too low, the advertisement will no longer be displayed, even if it is associated with the highest bid.
Another variation of the above-described concept is to show the keyword-based advertisements on websites other than search engines' search result sites. For example, if a website contains information about flowers, then it is likely that people viewing the website may have an interest in advertisements related to flowers. Thus, the intermediary may provide special programs to which publishers of websites can subscribe. In such a program, the intermediary analyzes the publisher's website to determine a suitable keyword or set of keywords to be associated with the website, such as “flowers” in the above example. The intermediary selects from its database the highest bidder on the determined keyword or keywords and provides the appropriate advertisements for the publisher's website. This type of advertising program is beneficial to the publisher, since the publisher is not required to take action other than display the advertisements and collect monetary compensation for displaying the advertisements. The publisher may also receive monetary compensation each time a viewer of the website clicks on the displayed advertisement. This compensation model is often referred to as “pay per click.” Alternatively, the publisher can be compensated based on the sales of the product featured in the advertisement, such as a certain percentage of the sales revenues of the featured product, rather than based on the number of clicks on the displayed advertisement. This compensation model is often referred to as “pay based on conversion.”
It would be advantageous to provide a system and method that enables publishers to use keyword based advertising arrangements and at the same time to control advertisements that are placed on their websites. It would also be advantageous to provide a system and method that enables web users and publishers to endorse various advertisements, advertisers and/or products referenced in particular advertisements. It would further be advantageous to provide a system and method that enables aggregation of advertisement related data including the endorsements of advertisements and/or advertisers by web users, publishers and advertisers. It should be understood that, although certain advantages are described, the teachings herein may be used to implement systems and methods that do not have any of these advantages but which have other advantages.